Do you feel that you need something in the game to urge you on to play it?

Yes, but it isn't gear like you mentioned. The game I'm currently playing does have a gear progression, but it can be accomplished with a variety of activities. Once you've completed the Map in GW2, there's not a whole lot of variety available to you. I really need a game with a robust achievement system that rewards you in some way, the choice to make all the content relevant, and lots of things to collect/excel in. It's not because I need something urging me to play, I need tangible and realistic goals. Even in a sandbox game there are inherent goals to accomplish.

Even Minecraft starts with the goal of survivial and naturally progresses to doing anything you want...but this is because they have built a world where that is possible. In a game like GW2 you are limited by the design of the game, so 'creating' content for yourself is really out of the question.

Originally Posted by Doozerjun

The drop in and out nature of GW2 is one of the things I most love that they took from their first game. Perhaps some time down the road you'll come back to play a bit.

Oh I'm sure I will on this part, which is why I decided to buy it. I played enough to get my money out of it, as valuable as that money is to me. I just can't see a time where it has enough to offer to entice me to play it over a few other games more successfully doing similar things.

There are a lot of things to collect/excel at in GW2, achievements as well. Maybe too many of these "casual" actives actually.

It could be that the idea of simply fighting baddies for the sake simply fighting them or jumping on rocks to get a jumping puzzle achievements are not appealing. Though I do think GW2 does have comparable goals/rewards of the casual variety as other games.

I would love some actual PVP ranking system, maybe something like Starcraft leagues, but they'd be named more like ranks in WoW - where you have a personal matchmaking rating (based on tournament play, and not visible as an actual rating) and your rank would reflect the mmr range you have. Rank could be used as a title and/or to buy bragging gear etc.

I'm not a huge fan of the current gear grind (if you can call it that) where you get cool looking sets just by farming hours and hours and hours of pvp, with no skill involved. Not to mention you can't actually see if/how you are improving when comparing to the rest of the player base in anyway. Nothing wrong with grind-able gear if there was an alternative as well.

There are a lot of things to collect/excel at in GW2, achievements as well. Maybe too many of these "casual" actives actually.

It could be that the idea of simply fighting baddies for the sake simply fighting them or jumping on rocks to get a jumping puzzle achievements are not appealing. Though I do think GW2 does have comparable goals/rewards of the casual variety as other games.

Jumping puzzles and exploration were great, but easily done. In that I mean, they don't present some long lasting, build up of an activity that takes time to play through. If you want you could set out to go do them all in a day/weekend/week as you choose. There's nothing lasting in it.

Fighting x baddy number 5 for the 25th time in a month with nothing else but to pat yourself on the back is not great game design. The achievements themself aren't as robust as other games. Better than the fake achievements of a codex system, but not great.

The PvE is limited in the form that it takes. You go somewhere and do it over and over, you do a dungeon, you PvP. Since I have no interest in PvP, we can narrow that down to you go somwhere and do things and dungeons over and over. Sure every game has repetition, but it's 5-15 items of repetition. Not two.

I do like integrated rewards, have wanted it in WoW for a long time. They give some, but Rift does do it well.

It's a lot more than the rewards though. Robust is having a huge diversity in the types/time to complete. Having serious achievements, ridiculous achievements, etc. The more pressing issue is the diversity in game activity though. That's what correlates to having a less robust achievement system.

Obviously this is all my opinion, but it's more like a console game that I beat and move on once I have everything out of the way, than it is an MMO. Even looking at it in a vaccuum, it doesn't feel like enough. If you don't want to PvP, like me, you aren't left with a lot of activities. If I come back in a year and they've added 40 more jumping puzzles, new ways to get cosmetic sets of gear, or more minigame things...then maybe at that point it would be for someone who wants the diversity like I do.

And that is the great thing about it. As long as those things aren't in an expansion, I will get to come enjoy them at no cost. I just don't think it's going to be enough to get me to pay them for anything else.

And for the record, here are some things that would provide me with different/additional styles of play:

1) A quest chain for professions that allow them to learn new Exotic sets, that don't cost a bajillion of any material or resource, but require a time commitment to go through. Maybe have it in stages. Don't allow these to be sold.

2) A housing feature/puzzle creator. For people who love building or jump puzzles this would be amazing.

3) Some new type of explorable feature that changes weekly, presenting fresh challenges. Even if it utilizes the existing viewpoints and other things, make some story out of the presentation. While it would boil down to be as simple as go to this place, go to this place and kill this guy, now go to this place....etc...etc, it would provide a framework for that to be continuously 'fresh'. Provide some form of rewards from this effort.

I like :
it's not world of clonecraft : some armour skins may be more common, but with dyes and weapon skins i have yet to see a clone army.
crafting : would need a bit more variety and can still be improved, but it's a nice system overall
world exploration
no stupid grey ganking
downleveling system
material gathering nodes
art

I hate :
logan
lack of real challenging content (need hard mode asap), be it outdoor (events) or indoor (dungeons in general)
no elite dungeons à la GW1 (Deep, Urgoz, DoA, etc)
events impact is too little/short and should have more consequences in the area
leveling can be tiresome if too few events happen (ie we need MOAR events!)
not being able to remain with your group on sPvP / activities (keg brawl etc)
no GvG / AvA / HoF
no PvP spectator mode (well there is no need without GvG/AvA/HoF but still...)
would like to see more puzzles and not only jumping puzzles.
LFG "status" is pretty much useless : I wonder why they didn't re-use the GW1 LFG system which would be fine imo.
some class traits are kinda meh